Courses for Spring 2015

Introduction to Acting and Directing

Explores basic acting/directing concepts from a variety of perspectives including the use of the actor's imagination/impulsivity in the creation of truthful, dramatic performance; the body, as a way of knowing and communicating knowledge; and the voice, as a means of discovering and revealing emotion/thought. There is a mandatory tech requirement and some evening hours are required. Please go to the TAPS website for specifics on admission and the technical requirement (http://brown.edu/go/TAPS0030). Enrollment limited to 18 first year students. Instructor permission required. No permission will be given during pre-registration.

Playwriting I

A workshop for students who have little or no previous experience in writing plays. Students will be introduced to a variety of technical and imaginative considerations through exercises, readings and discussions. Course is not open to those who have taken Advanced Playwriting (TAPS 1500, formerly LITR 1010C and TSDA 1500). Enrollment is limited to 14 undergraduates per section. A limited number of spaces are reserved for incoming and transfer students. Instructor permission required. S/NC. WRIT

Persuasive Communication

Provides an introduction to public speaking, and helps students develop confidence in public speaking through the presentation of persuasive speeches. Primarily for seniors. Limited to 18. Instructor's permission required. No permission will be given during pre-registration; interested students should sign up well in advance on the TAPS 0220 waitlist (application form is at http://brown.edu/go/TAPS0220) and attend the first day of class. Attendance is mandatory. The application/waitlist process does not apply to students registering for the Summer term through the Office of Continuing Education.

Introduction to Technical Theatre and Production

This course is an introduction to the basic principles of stagecraft, lighting and sound technology and the different elements of theatrical design. Instructor permission required. Enrollment limited to 15.

The Actor's Instrument: Voice and Speech

A complete and well-seasoned actor has the ability to perform with specificity and ease, both vocally and physically. Specificity comes from an integration of speech and movement technique. Ease is only possible when a mastery of technical skills reaches the point where the actor can integrate them without loss of spontaneity. The goal of this class is to give the student the fundamental techniques of voice and speech in relation to the body. Prerequisite: TAPS 0230. Enrollment limited to 16. Instructor permission required. S/NC.

Prerequisite does not apply to students registering for the Summer term through the Office of Continuing Education.

Explorations in Clown and Physical Play

Participating in this course, you will learn how to value and share your own unique ridiculousness by transforming mistakes into opportunities and limitations into creative expression. Based in physical exploration and improvisation, this work will implore you to recognize your relationship to fear, expand your sense of humor, connect to an audience, and play with abandon. Inspired by various kinds of clowns throughout history, you will begin to create your own vocabulary of play that will organically accumulate into solo and group performance pieces.

Intermediate Dance

Designed to expand the student's knowledge of and proficiency in dance as an art form. Mainly a studio course, but selected readings, papers, critiques, and field trips are important components of the course. Prerequisite: TAPS 0310 or equivalent. Enrollment limited to 40. S/NC.

Sites + Conditions: Design Strategies For Performance and Other Contexts

This class will explore the idea of “critical spatial practice” as related to event, condition, and performance. We’ll develop skills of concept-creation, analysis and image-making and point them outside the “boxes” of traditional cultural production spaces like the gallery or the theater, dealing with both literal and functional or allegorical sites. We’ll conduct small and large experiments in site-based performance, architectural interventions, and creating alternative spatial conditions driven by dynamic ideation, narrative and intent. Redefining limits as liberties, and appropriating asset-based strategies from community development models, this course will investigate visual, devised alternatives to traditional text-initiated performance-making.

Performing Brazil: Language, Theater, Culture (POBS 1080)

Solo Performance

An exploration of the challenges and rewards of performing solo. Students research, write, and perform a one-person show. Other projects may include performance art, stand-up comedy, and monologuing. Substantial time commitment. Attendance mandatory. For advanced students with appropriate background and experience. Submit proposal and resume in the fall, For guidelines and information contact taps@brown.edu. Permission required in advance. Enrollment limited to 20.

Performance Historiography and Theatre History

This course will provide an introduction to performance history and historiography by concentrating on analysis of dramatic texts, theatrical events, festival performances and "performative" state and religious ceremonies from 1500-1850. We will explore incidents in Asia, the Americas and Europe as related to state consolidation, colonization, incipient nationalism(s), urbanization, cultural negotiation, and the representational practices the enacted. Enrollment limited to 35. WRIT

Twentieth-Century Western Theatre and Performance

The study of key figures and movements in 20th-century Western theatre and performance, from approximately 1870 to 2000. We explore naturalism and alternative strategies to realism such as symbolism, futurism, surrealism and constructivism, along with myriad figures in the modern and postmodern "avant-garde." WRIT

Masking, Trancing, Performing, and Spectating in Non-Western and Circumpacific Performance

An inquiry into specific traditions of performance - ritual, traditional theatre, contemporary theatre, and performed behavior in more or less day-to-day life - that exist or have existed in various (mostly) Asian settings and have been studied and documented by scholars, film-makers, and theatre artists. The emphasis will be on traditions that use masks as means of transforming the identity of the performer and of the world presented in performance. No prior experience in theatrical performance or in the study of Asia or anthropology is assumed. WRIT

Introduction to Set Design

A survey of the history and concepts of scenic design with emphasis on the art, artists and the social/political movements influencing the major period. Aims to give the designer a foundation in research approaches. Also to provide an examination of stylistic approaches and innovations in the context of the historical period. Enrollment limited to 10.

Examines the relationship between social and cultural identities and their representations in dramatic literature and performance. Students will be expected to read critical essays and plays, conduct research, and prepare to act in scenes that challenge the actor to confront the specifics of character and situation beyond the Eurocentric ideal. The goal is to strengthen the actor's ability to construct truly meaningful characters by removing any reliance of "type" and/or immediate "identification" with the characters they will portray. Instructor permission required; interested students must come to the first class, fill out an application and participate in a sample class. Accepted students will be notified by the third class meeting. You must show up to every class meeting in order to keep your application active throughout the registration process. Enrollment limited to 18. DPLL

Artists and Scientists as Partners: Theory to Practice

This course focuses on the application of current research in neuroscience, education, narrative medicine, and best practices in the arts for persons with neurological disorders. Through site placements, students will provide arts experiences (primarily dance and music) for persons with Parkinson’s Disease (PD) and Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Course also includes guest lecturers, readings, field trips, curriculum development, ethnographic research, and planning of and participation in a convening of artists and scientists engaged in holistic healing

Dance Styles

This course focuses on the diverse styles, techniques and movement theories of Modern Dance. The students will practice the techniques and styles and will also study biographical material, view films, and attend live performances when possible. Enrollment limited to 40. S/NC.

Dance Performance and Repertory

A study of dance repertory offered through commissioned new works, reconstruction, coaching, rehearsal, and performance. The course will explore the phenomenology of dance, audience-performer connection, theatre production and dance criticism, among other topics. Enrollment is by audition. Limited to skilled dancers. S/NC.

New Works/World Traditions

From research to performance, develops new dance theater pieces that are rooted in Mande dance and American dance. Includes study with Mande, American, and European artists in building a body of repertory for the concert stage. May be repeated for credit. By audition. S/NC.

Mise en Scene

A reconstruction of the idea of a stage and a frame on the evidence of theory, novels, plays, and especially films-the seen and the unseen-using the organizing strategies of mystery. Art's "impossible" brokering of the real and the representational in a dialectic of space is considered from a multiplicity of perspectives in diverse works. Enrollment limited to 20. Instructor permission required. WRIT

Contemporary Mande Performance

This course examines the influences of contemporary society upon traditional Mande Performance. Equal emphasis will be given to the theory and practice of embodied performance as it responds to selected music traditions, oral literatures, and aesthetic traditions. Films, readings, guest lectures and collaborative research projects will help to facilitate a deeper understanding of contemporary Mande society and its artistic production. Students MUST register for a conference and a lecture section. Enrollment limited to 150. Students must attend the first class meeting, as final enrollment is determined by application/tryout.

Russian Theatre and Drama

An overview of Russian theatre and drama from the 18th century to the late 20th century. Emphasis on plays as texts and historical documents, and on theatrical conditions, productions, and innovations. All readings are in English. Russian area studies concentrators are encouraged to enroll. Instructor permission required. WRIT

Science and Performance

Performance is everywhere – on television, in theatres, in rituals, and in everyday acts. Performance also happens in less expected spaces, such as laboratories and surgical theatres, One definition of a fact is “a thing done, made, or performed.” This course will give us the tools to think critically about how seemingly neutral and universal scientific truths and medical technologies are produced and transformed through performances in labs and clinics, on media and theatre stages, and in science fiction and bioart. Texts will include historical and anthropological studies of science and technology, works of literature, and works of art.

Screenwriting

Screenwriting is a course designed to familiarize the neophyte screenwriter with the basic principles of writing for the silver-screen. By closely examining produced films, in-depth readings of both good and bad scripts, and through the writing of our own, we will gain an understanding of how screenplays are written, and written well. The course will provide a foundation in the basics of the three-act act structure, dramatic action, character arc, the revision process, and an introduction to the business of screenwriting. By the end of the semester we will have produced and polished a 10 page/minute manuscript. Enrollment limited to 17.

Script Adaptation

This class aims to develop skills and techniques for the creation of new dramatic works based upon previously published or performed material. The unit explores the process of creating a script from previously published source material. To achieve this goal, we will explore the problems inherent in creating dramatic material from source material of various forms. The module will enhance core skills in scriptwriting, dramaturgy and script analysis. Weekly classes will include lecture and discussion, readings, film screenings and writing exercises. Enrollment limited to 17.

Advanced Playwrighting: Guhahamuka

Guhahamuka is a Kinyarwanda word meaning “breathlessness,” sometimes applied to the wordlessness that befalls the survivors of trauma. We will progress through a series of graduated exercises design to work-out the fundamentals of writing for the live encounter, with an emphasis on the uses of testimony, and language that pushes into spaces where language doesn’t fit, doesn’t belong, fails, converts itself to different energies. How a writer’s technique images spiritual practice, and avails of the useful impossibilities of incarnation and transcendence. Taking on a practical language from contemplative traditions as means of ordering the writer’s craft. WRIT

Independent Reading and Research

Intensive reading and research on selected topics arranged in terms of special needs and interests of the student. A written proposal must be submitted to the instructor and the chair of the theatre arts department before the project can be approved. Section numbers vary by instructor. Please check Banner for the correct section number and CRN to use when registering for this course.

Senior Honors Thesis Preparation

To be taken by all students accepted into the theatre arts honors program. Section numbers vary by instructor. Please check Banner for the correct section number and CRN to use when registering for this course.

Historiography

This graduate seminar is dedicated to a thorough examination of theater and performance historiography. The course will consider methodologies of writing about the past, concentrating on analyzing the writing of history and examining how historical information is obtained, imagined and disseminated in our field, where embodied practice is crucial to thinking. This course will necessarily consider how historiography is understood with the discipline of history as well as performance and theatre studies.

Pedagogy: Prep and Practice

In the second year of the three-year MFA Playwriting Program, students are required to teach undergraduates Introductory and Intermediate Playwriting. This course readies MFAs for their teaching in advance of their time at the head of the classroom, provides them with mentorship during the conduct of their teaching, and assesses their experience at the end of their assignments. It is an intensive seminar, where the head of the Playwriting Program meets with students individually and as a team, sharing in the evolutions of curricular design and practice, offering close comment and tailored assignments (suggested readings; writing tasks).

Graduate Playwriting

With Word as the bodying forth into social reality of original
experience, the structures, purposes and ethical risks of writing for
performance are examined; experienced through the reading of each
other's works-in-progress, through the reading of essays and in
session exercises. Must be taken by playwriting grad students every
semester in residence. May be taken multiple times for credit.
Undergraduates will be admitted with permission of the instructor.
Contact Erik_Ehn@Brown.edu using "Grad PW" in the subject line.
Permission will be given once manuscripts have been reviewed. S/NC

Acting, Brown/Trinity Rep Consortium

This course is open only to students of the Consortium. It will include fundamental exercises, textual analysis, rehearsal techniques, character and scene work designed to provide the student actor with a working method based upon the general principles of the Stanislavski system. A major part of this course will include rehearsal and performance responsibilities.

Acting: Realism and Modernism

This is a two-credit course and is open only to students of the MFA Consortium program. This is a scene study class with an emphasis 20th century playwrights. In addition to the works of Anton Chekhov, students may perform scenes from plays by Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Clifford Odets, Wendy Wasserstein, Peter Parnell, Paula Vogel, Edward Albee and Harold Pinter.

Voice: Phonetics

This course is open only to students of the Brown University/Trinity Rep MFA Consortium program. The course will teach articulation, self expression, and link to text and acting. Additional work is devoted to speech and diction, with an introduction to the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) and a progression through Standard American Speech to rudimentary dialect work.

Movement: Physical Life and Language

This course is open only to students of the Brown University/Trinity Rep MFA Consortium program. It will help the student incorporate text and physicality in order to create the inner and outer life of a character. Special attention will be given to the student's repetitive physical patterns, and new ways will be explored in examining the internal and external life of a character.

Directing: Collaboration with the Playwright

This course is open only to students of the MFA Consortium program. It will focus on issues of collaboration between the playwright and the director. Each director will be assigned to work on a new script in cooperation with a playwright. A workshop production will be staged and open to the public.

Acting: Problems of Style

This is a two-credit course and is open only to students of the MFA Consortium program. This is a scene study class with an emphasis on the problems of style and language in non-realistic plays. In addition to advanced work on Shakespeare's texts, the course will explore other playwrights, possibly including Ibsen, Strindberg, Shaw and Beckett.

Voice: Singing with Joy

This course is open only to students of the MFA Consortium program. Students will work on music, both as soloists and in small groups. The course will address issues of sight reading, breath support, phrasing, and how to stage a song for performance.

Movement: Stage Combat, Clowning, and Other Physical Form

This course is open only to students of the MFA Consortium program. It will offer basic instruction in many physical areas including, but not limited to stage combat, juggling, mime, tumbling and clowning.

Directing: Critical Analysis

This course is open only to students of the MFA Consortium program. It will include issues of directing, as well as the concerns of an Artistic Director and Associate Artistic Director. Each student will be expected to assistant direct a professional production at Trinity Rep Company.

Acting: Monologue Performance

This is a two-credit course and is open only to students of the Brown University/Trinity Rep MFA Consortium program. Acting assignments will include solo work presented in a variety of ways. These might include a selection of monologues and songs presented by the students to show the full range of his or her abilities. A performance might also include a solo piece written by the student and presented as a single-actor production.

Acting and Directing: Practical Application

This is a two-credit course and is open only to students of the Brown University/Trinity Rep MFA Consortium program. The course will prepare acting students for a graduate showcase which will be performed in New York City and Los Angeles for agents, casting directors, and other professionals in the industry. Directing students will stage a New York showcase of their work for agents, artistic directors, and other theatre professionals. The course will also cover audition and interview techniques. Video work will be explored in detail, examining the difference between stage and on-camera direction and performance.

Professional Performance

This is a two-credit course and is open only to students of the Brown University/Trinity Rep MFA Consortium program. It will include performance work in a variety of venues including, but not limited to, Trinity Rep's mainstage. Work might include major and/or minor roles at Trinity, as well as understudy responsibilities for the professional company. Based on their participation in this course, students will be awarded their union cards so that they are able to enter the professional area upon graduating.

Directing: Practical Application

This is a two-credit course and is open only to students of the Brown University/Trinity Rep MFA Consortium program. Each student will direct a professional full-scale production in one of Trinity Rep's theatres. In addition to directorial duties, students will assist in casting and designing the play, and will be fully involved in areas of budget, publicity, press relations, marketing and development.

Thesis Workshop

For graduate playwrights, in their second and third years, rehearsing and revising their thesis projects. May be taken multiple times for credit. Must be taken both semesters in the second and third year.

Graduate Level Independent Reading and Research

A program of intensive reading and research on selected topics arranged in terms of special needs and interests of the student. Section numbers vary by instructor. Please check Banner for the correct section number and CRN to use when registering for this course.